Wiscasset Town Manager Andrew Gilmore has put together a committee to come up with an investment policy for the town, something he said he planned to do at a recent selectmen's meeting. However, when it came time to call the first meeting of the committee, which was last Thursday night, October 28, no notice was given to the public. State law requires that the public be notified.

Let's go back a few years, to when Key Trust was managing the town's reserve funds. Several citizens, including Karl Tarbox and Prior Morrell, lobbied for months to get the selectmen to look into putting the management of the funds out to bid, so to speak, to see if the town could get a better return on its money. The selectmen ultimately agreed, and a committee was put together to hear proposals from financial institutions. Those meetings were well publicized and covered by the local press.

The committee, which included town treasurer Jim George and former town manager David Kinney, decided to turn over the management of the funds to Edward Jones, the company which has been managing the money since that time.

Now comes a new town manager, who suggests, quite reasonably, that the town should also have an investment policy, spelling out the town's view on how the money should be handled.

There was no lack of opportunity to post notice of this meeting. It could have been announced two nights before, at the selectmen's meeting. It could have been posted on the sign board in front of the municipal building.

Are we headed back into an era of secrecy in town government?

American historian Henry Steele Commager said it best: "The generation that made this nation thought secrecy in government one of the instruments of Old World tyranny, And committed itself to the principle that a democracy cannot function unless the people are permitted to know what their government is up to."

- Paula Gibbs